Maine facility aids quests for Olympic team

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FORT KENT – Andy Shepard couldn’t have been prouder.

Seven of the nine berths for the U.S. Olympic biathlon team decided last week at the 10th Mountain Ski Center went to athletes with some kind of connection to the Maine Winter Sports Center, of which Shepard is the president.

The day would have been sweeter with the inclusion on one more MWSC biathlete, however. Shepard’s son Walt, a Yarmouth High graduate who lives and trains in Fort Kent, finished in ninth place, 11.63 points away from Brian Olsen, who finished in fourth and grabbed the final spot.

Walt Shepard was already on his way back to visit his native Yarmouth last Tuesday afternoon, just a few hours after coming in 10th in the men’s 10-kilometer sprint.

Although he admitted to feeling a bit “lost” after the trials, Walt Shepard plans to continue his career and is now thinking four years ahead to the Vancouver Olympics.

“My plan was always to qualify in 2010,” he said Monday from Fort Kent, where he now lives. “But as last year went on, with the results I had, I thought making the [2006] team was very achievable.”

Wearing the MWSC’s blue-and-yellow uniform, Walt Shepard got huge ovations from the crowd each of the four days. He was one of the original athletes to live and train at the 10th Mountain’s lodge.

The fans, including members of the Yarmouth High and North Yarmouth Academy ski teams, cheered after every one of the shots he made on the range and also cheered and rang cowbells when he left the starting line.

“Walt’s not the only athlete who suffered bitter disappointment,” Andy Shepard said as he fought back tears. “But for him, I think there’s the added realization that he had so many people rooting for him.”

Walt Shepard was ninth in the 20K individual, fifth in the first sprint, and 11th in the 15K pursuit.

“Stress, nerves, I don’t know what it was,” he said. “It just wasn’t there for me. I guess you could say it was a bad week to have a bad week.”

Even though four years until Vancouver might seem far away, biathlon is a sport in which many of the top athletes peak in their late 20s and early 30s.

One member of the women’s team, Sarah Konrad of Wyoming, is 38.

Shepard has already had a fine career with national titles, North American championships, and solid finishes at world junior championships. He also started a nonprofit foundation called Healthy Aim with fellow MWSC team member Haley Johnson.

Healthy Aim offers school visits by MWSC biathletes to talk about living a healthy lifestyle.

“Those are all the things I’m so proud of,” Andy Shepard said.

Still, he was pleased with the seven MWSC biathletes that will be in Turin, Italy, in February. Many of them have been living and training in Fort Kent for the past four years.

“[Fort Kent residents] embrace them, bring them into their homes, make them part of the family, and that really has meant a lot,” Andy Shepard said. “The same thing’s happening down in Presque Isle with the cross-country athletes.”

Olsen pays tribute to club

While most of the Maine Winter Sports Center athletes chose “MWSC” as their official team designation, Brian Olsen chose another moniker to indicate his club team.

Olsen, who qualified for the Olympics with the fourth-highest point total at last week’s trials, competed under the banner of the 10th Mountain Ski Club.

Olsen, a native of Bloomington, Minn., has been living on the second floor of the 10th Mountain lodge for the past four years. He said Fort Kent has come to be his home instead of a place he trains.

“I felt that here more than anywhere else, so that’s why I chose 10th Mountain,” Olsen said. “10th Mountain is where I felt that I should put my dues, because I feel connected with my community.”

The connection hit him when he arrived in Fort Kent on Dec. 19.

That day, Olsen went to the lodge to file his trials paperwork. He saw volunteers he knew, including event organizer Nancy Thibodeau. He was staying with Jeff and Sherry Dubis of Fort Kent – Jeff Dubis served as chief of course. He ran into Kirk Paradis, who was the venue manager, at the grocery store.

Seeing the familiar faces made Olsen want to pay tribute to the 10th Mountain Ski Club, although he is still supported by MWSC.

“[MWSC] helped me get to this point. Otherwise I wouldn’t be in biathlon anymore,” he said. “But I think that there’s a difference between financial support and moral and general support.”

Olsen also wanted to pay tribute to how far the club has come – far enough to pull off an event like the trials.

“They put this event together with very little help,” he said. “It was as much of a journey for them as it was for me, and we’ve both reached our goals.”

Olsen is no longer a member of the U.S. national developmental team, he said, because he wants to do things on his own.

He’s become his own coach, with some guidance from MWSC cross country coach Will Sweetser. Sweetser and another MWSC coach, Gary Colliander, waxed Olsen’s skis last week.

“I chose that because that’s the manner I work best in,” Olsen said. “I’m sort of internally motivated. It’s worked out pretty well.”

Web site traffic up

USBA marketing director Cobb worked out a pretty impressive number on New Year’s Eve when he realized that the biathlon association’s Web site had logged about 405,000 hits in December, which represents a 60 percent increase from the previous high of 240,000 in one month last year.

Cobb said the jump was likely due to interest in Olympics and the increased quality of the Web site.

“We haven’t had a really high-quality Web site during a pre-Olympic cycle,” he said. “It’s a lot of hits. It’s a lot of people coming and looking around and spending some time.”